Time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers. ~Franz Kafka
I haven’t written a sentence for days. Though I had just about enough rest using my standards, I woke up feeling a bit heavy this morning.
I know why I feel weighty. I ate late yesterday because it wasn’t a great day. It was a day to forget.
It had started with a logistics nightmare, both in Nigeria and Italy.
Which was followed by an email from my brokers.
I could recount the stressful events of yesterday in detail. But when I received the sad news of my tenant’s demise, I just concluded that a bad day is a bad day, there is little you can do about it.
So I would rather look forward and focus on what I must do to make today better—starting here and now.
I could read.
Yep, I have a book I got for €2 from thrift shopping.
You know the charity shops? There’s never a dull visit to those shops.
I’ve got uncountable unbelievable bargains from them.
They interest me so much that my artist dates rarely end without a sneak peek.
The book titled Writing For The Market by Patricia O’Reilly is right before me.
It’s now a month old and my promise to devour it during my business trip to Italy yielded only a few pages.
So I may just as well continue.
I could relax and think.
You know, sit back to my usual mindfulness playlist — which by the way, is playing as I write.
Or, I could finish the Akimbo podcast I started yesterday.
The problem here is that I would have to start afresh to refresh my memory and I don’t have the time. I love listening to podcasts at a sitting, particularly any from Seth Godin. This is why I usually do it when I’m out for walks which takes at least 45 minutes.
Yet I could keep writing.
As you can see, thoughts are pouring out.
And this is the thing with the human brain.
It is constantly bombarded with millions of information.
It just doesn’t stop. If it stops you die!
Now how do I process all these thoughts?
How can I possibly know the proper path to choose?
For a minute or two I sat back and took a deep breath.
I ended up taking another 10 or more.
Even then, other thoughts immediately assailed my consciousness.
Like what to tell a friend who asked for a loan.
How to navigate the cancelled insurance policy.
What to get for my twins on their 18th birthday..and tons of other issues.
I jerked back to the present.
Frankly, I practically jumped up and grabbed this pen again.
Now here is the thing.
Firstly, these are mainly money problems.
I long decided that financial problems should never occupy my thoughts in the mornings, particularly in the early hours that birth my creative emergence.
This is simply because financial problems are unending.
But as long as I have earnings, they can easily be solved with a scale of priorities.
I wrote to illustrate this here.
Secondly, I have less than 30 minutes to school run.
And once I’m out of this attic, the day begins.
We all know how it is..the hours are the hours.
And they are usually brutal in this part of the world.
You no longer have total control..and in my case I may not have a desk for the rest of the day.
So what to do?
I reminded myself of another promise.
“Use the early morning hours to write down something”.
Sticking to this circadian rhythm has made many successful writers.
Julia Cameron wrote: The bedrock tool of a creative recovery is something I call Morning Pages: three pages of longhand, morning writing about absolutely anything. They are to be written first thing in the morning, and shown to no one. There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages. I like to think of them as windshield wipers, swiping away anything that stands between you and a clear view of your day.
So here I am, reiterating what I’ve always known and previously put down in writing..for good reasons.
Yes, it is good writing practice.
It is worthwhile
And with further research, it could be developed and published for the world.
Or let me just hit the publish button. I can edit and update later.
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